Murder book sheds fresh light on Shropshire murder of Janine Downes

Dec 13 2009 by Adam Aspinall, Sunday Mercury

She was barely recognisable and her body had been hidden near a recreation ground off Golden Hillock Road in the Sparkbrook area of Birmingham.

A post-mortem examination, which identified her by fingerprints, showed she had been strangled before being rolled up in a carpet and set on fire.

Hours later, he killed Rosemary Corcoran, whose battered body was found in a wooded lane by a pub landlord off the A38 near Droitwich Spa.

He knocked over his third victim, Carol Jordan, with his car as she walked to work at a care home. Smith then beat her so severely that she had to be identified from dental records.

Howard believes that Smith is a key suspect, citing the comment from the investigating officer after the trial that it was “virtually inconceivable” that he had not killed before.

In a macabre twist, the Sunday Mercury revealed in 2001 that Smith used to live on the same street in Gloucester as serial killer Fred West.

But Howard also reveals that Smith has been linked to a string of other prostitute murders in Devon, Gloucestershire and even Ireland as he moved from town to town with his travelling fairground.

She also reveals that Smith has been considered a suspect in Janine’s death for some time but that police have not yet been able to make a firm link.

But he was not the only deranged killer preying on vulnerable women in the Midlands during the 1990s.

Howard believes that police should take a long hard look at jailed serial killer Alun Kyte.

Kyte, 45, from Stafford, is serving a life sentence for killing two prostitutes in the early 1990s.

He claimed his first victim, 20 year-old Rowley Regis prostitute Samo Paull, in December 1993, abducting her from Balsall Heath and dumping her body in Leicestershire.

He then killed prostitute Tracey Turner in March 1994 after he picked the 30 year-old from Hilton Park services on the M6 motorway near Walsall and abandoned her body near the M1 motorway at Lutterworth.

Since his imprisonment, Kyte – who claims to have killed 12 women – has been connected with at least six unsolved murders between October 1990 and May 1994. One of the cases is that of Janine Downes.

Indeed, in the mid-1990s, Samo Paull and Tracey Turner were two of the three women whose deaths the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) concluded were typical of the work of a “Midlands Ripper”. Just like Janine Downes, they had been strangled miles from the place where they were dumped, and items of jewellery had been removed.

Similarities

Based on theories like this, Howard believes Kyte has to be the chief suspect – and points out chilling similarities between the murders of Samo Paull and Tracey Turner with that of Janine Downes.

All three were found partially naked and certain items of their clothing have never been recovered. Experts think that such thefts may be linked to ‘trophy-taking’, allowing a rapist to re-visit, and fantasise about the killings.

Howard also argues that all three victims were working girls and that while Kyte was obsessed with prostitutes he also loathed them, once declaring: “You don’t pay for those kind of women.”

She also reveals Kyte hinted that Samo Paull had laughed at him during sex so he throttled her until she stopped, suggesting that the same fate could have befallen Janine, who was known on the streets for her ‘smart mouth’.

He was also known to have regularly frequented red-light districts and to have preferred to have driven the girls miles away from where he picked them up.

Most crucially of all, he was known to have worked in the Midlands during the early 1990s.

In Howard’s words: ‘Kyte cannot be ignored in the search for Janine’s killer’.

Whatever the truth someone, somewhere, knows who killed Janine Downes. And with crime-fighting techniques becoming ever more sophisticated Vanessa Howard believes it is only a matter of time until Janine’s killer is finally uncovered.

adam.aspinall@sundaymercury.net